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Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

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Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#51
post #35
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even look at the browser stats link I posted? No browser has a majority usage share anymore.

Do you mean the huge green Chrome bar?

The size of the bar doesn't represent usage. If you hover over, for example, Chrome 39, you will see it has 0.13% of global usage.

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#52
post #51
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean the huge green Chrome bar?

The size of the bar doesn't represent usage. If you hover over, for example, Chrome 39, you will see it has 0.13% of global usage.

If you click the "Usage relative" button, then the bars do resize to reflect usage. The numbers here are based on StatCounter measurements, which show Chrome with a 42% page view share (about 3 times higher than the next most popular browser):

http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-browser-ww-monthly-201311-201...

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... you know what a browser is (and you also know that there are alternatives). Most people don't. Most people don't open the browser, they "go to the Internet"; the browser is the "Internet". If a dominant player bundles their browser (as a component) in their OS, people become less and less aware of the browser as a possible and separate "product", and will of course use the dominant one as default - this is (a…

But the same is true for the calculator app, or the file manager. Granted, the web is used for a lot more than those... but I don't see why the browser is singled out as something needing special legal treatment.

As I understand it, Microsoft spent a lot of effort integrating their desktop environment with the browser. Blurring the lines between files on the machine and hyperlinks, making the desktop a webpage, etc. The idea was that "using Windows" and "using IE" were designed to be synonymous -- so much so that the popularity of Windows could be used to monopolize the internet. Nobody would even be able to use another browser without crippling their ability to use Windows, and you couldn't use another OS without crippling your ability to use the internet.

At least, that was the fear.

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#54
post #25

I'm almost equally scared of the Chrome dominance now as I was for IE6.

I'm starting to see sites which work in Chrome but not Firefox - and not because of fancy web standards Firefox hasn't caught up with, but web page bugs showing the developers haven't bothered testing in other browsers.

> bugs showing the developers haven't bothered testing in other browsers.

I see this a lot and it's clear that most designers are building for Chrome and that they trust Firefox to render everything the same as Chrome will. The assumption that following the standards ensures a page will render the same in at least Chrome and Firefox has started to feel safe. That's a big improvement from the era that preceded, when you knew with certainty that cross-browser issues would exist. But it's not a completely safe assumption yet and may never be. Always test.

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#55
post #3

Good riddance -- that screen was nothing more than a historic artifact at this point. With Microsoft's monopoly on web-enabled devices finally broken by Android/iOS, not to mention the emergence of Chrome on Windows desktops, IE-dominance has finally more or less ended[1]. [1] http://caniuse.com/#search=webgl

IE-dominance has finally more or less ended ... in favor of a Google/Chrome-dominance. Not much of a victory for the end user.

As far as I can tell, most Chrome users are aware of Firefox, IE, or Safari though. So the victory of Chrome isn't manipulative and exploitative -- the browser-wars culture is very different these days. People _choose_ Chrome for the most part.

There is nothing wrong with offering a product that everyone wants to use. That's how Google became big in the first place.

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#56
post #5

I remember seeing this on TV and not understanding why microsoft was threatened with a fine if they ship IE by default on their products. Actually I still don't. Nobody ever stopped me from downloading another browser on windows, anyone who wants to do it will do it. So people did have a choice, they just didn't know they had it, and it's their problem, not microsoft's! Could someone explain this to me?

I thought the original reason wasn't that Microsoft was shipping IE with Windows per say, but that they were telling OEMs that they weren't allowed to pre-install Netscape if they wanted to keep their sweet Windows OEM license deals. Am I thinking of the wrong case?

That would make more sense if this was the root of the problem. Otherwise Apple and Google would be in the same boat offering users a choice to install a browser other than the default for OSX, iOS, and Android

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#57
post #5

I remember seeing this on TV and not understanding why microsoft was threatened with a fine if they ship IE by default on their products. Actually I still don't. Nobody ever stopped me from downloading another browser on windows, anyone who wants to do it will do it. So people did have a choice, they just didn't know they had it, and it's their problem, not microsoft's! Could someone explain this to me?

You needed to be around in the 1990s to understand this. :) Its sort of like Google search now where when you search for "ann arbor map" you get a giant beautiful link to another Google property and a few riffraff links to other competitors that basically nobody ever clicks on because it would take effort. This is exactly where Microsoft was in the 90s / early 2000s with browsers. They had a dominant desktop share an…

I was there in the 90s. Only having access to Windows when the Internet became common, guess how I went about learning there were other browsers out there and downloading Netscape?

How much more difficult would that have been if IE wasn't included by default with Windows?

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#58
post #5

I remember seeing this on TV and not understanding why microsoft was threatened with a fine if they ship IE by default on their products. Actually I still don't. Nobody ever stopped me from downloading another browser on windows, anyone who wants to do it will do it. So people did have a choice, they just didn't know they had it, and it's their problem, not microsoft's! Could someone explain this to me?

This is a pretty great account of the whole msft antitrust debacle. Lots of interesting details and insights into motivations on both sides. Long read, but worth it. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/microsoft_pr.htm...

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#59
post #43
post #25

I'm almost equally scared of the Chrome dominance now as I was for IE6.

I'm less scared because at least Chrome (or rather Blink / webkit) is open source so can (and is) implemented in other browsers. However I do agree with you that it isn't healthy for any single rendering engine to monopolise the internet.

The fact that Chrome is open source doesn't helps me, a Firefox/Safari user, when I see the site that works correctly only on Chrome.

Open source or not, I don't want to use Chrome. There was a time when Chrome was lean, now Chrome is a pig. Not to mention blatant Chrome push from Google - the last one is Inbox, "it works only on Chrome". Set Safari user agent to Chrome? Everything works well. Shame on you, Google. That's exactly what Microsoft did in '90s.

Re: Deal forcing Microsoft to offer browser choices ends

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to see sites which work in Chrome but not Firefox - and not because of fancy web standards Firefox hasn't caught up with, but web page bugs showing the developers haven't bothered testing in other browsers.

> bugs showing the developers haven't bothered testing in other browsers. I see this a lot and it's clear that most designers are building for Chrome and that they trust Firefox to render everything the same as Chrome will. The assumption that following the standards ensures a page will render the same in at least Chrome and Firefox has started to feel safe. That's a big improvement from the era that preceded, when y…

I nearly got caught by this just 5 or 6 days ago with handling dates. Chrome would parse:

> 2014-12-15 08:00 PM

For example, but firefox needed the RFC3339 format.

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